Then, he was a scrawny, freshly minted teenager. Scribbling reinvented poetry that failed the test of romance, and meditating in the names of then-contemporary rock bands were acts that made him feel holier-than-thou! Today, he’s well past 60 and still loves to drown every word that emanates from his half-a-century old birthday gift: a 78 rpm record with the words ‘Rubber Soul’ faintly visible on its label.

Steven Philip Warner | The Dollar Business

Ask him what ‘Rubber Soul’ means and he will typically get started thus each time, “Oh! They made America proud of British music. That was the music of the 1960s; your generation won’t understand...” And then would follow his agitated waving of the hand, making me believe each time, that he was there when The Beatles first crossed the Atlantic to get America dance to its tunes.

Each time his story starts, I wonder – “How lucky were the four amateurs.” They had no money. Just two years of experience in the show business. And they made a mockery of the likes of domestic greats like CCR, Doors, Elvis and Dylan. They made America choose imported music! 177 million units of their albums were sold in US in seven years. That’s 70,000 units a day (when online shopping was still an unborn brainchild).

How The Beatles descended on American culture is an example of how a Liverpool-born product can make radio stations and television sets come alive from New Jersey to Sacramento! That is as true in the present day as it was half-a-century back. That’s the belief that gave birth to The Dollar Business project. The right product-right market mix can make millions for an exporter or an importer. The Dollar Business believes it can inform and educate those whose guts and minds believe that decoding what appears an encrypted manual on foreign trade is possible. Each issue of The Dollar Business comes with quite a few such million dollar ideas. This issue too does.

From importing leather goods to exporting bananas to EU. From earning forex from legal services outsourcing to selling close to $30 million worth of bicycles each year to Africa...the profitable ventures are far too many, and our pages too few. If Indian exporters can ship human hair (to 72 countries; earning over $300 million), animal semen (worth $200,000 to US & Vietnam), and natural sand ($7.2 million; 22 markets), there definitely are ‘saner’ exports that can be made to bell prosperity.

Foreign trade can be an expensive disappointment. It can prove a bizarre success too. If a hot, tropical market like Brazil can export ‘ski equipment’ to zero-snowfall zones like Angola and the Dominican Republic, there is no reason why you should not fancy a conversation with one of the many-a-saner-business idea that sits quietly inside each issue of The Dollar Business.

With hope that the new Foreign Trade Policy will bring good tidings for services and manufacturing sectors alike, with existing incentive schemes being broadened and wrong edges of import tariffs being chipped at, The Dollar Business hopes that its readers become export-and-importomaniacs; some new, some veterans, some diversified.

Cross-border trade is a lucrative obsession. It’s no blindfolded stock bet or a methodology for just the Dilton Doileys. Every one has a right to fish beyond the pond. The Beatles did too! They became a smash hit.

Going back to The Beatles...well, my father still thinks they’re great because they made America love imported music. Bollywood does that to America each day, doesn’t it? How about that for greatness in exports?